Firebugs
by HecateA
Summary: After finding out the news about the prophecy, all Lily can do is go sit in the garden—and all James can do is try to comfort her. Oneshot. Happy Halloween.


**Author's Note: Happy Halloween, have some Jily fluff. Sorry it's late, we were busy playing spoopy board games and eating pumpkin pancakes over here. Enjoy! **

**Disclaimer: **The following characters belong to J.K. Rowling, and this story derives from her original works, storylines, and world. Please do not sue me, I can barely pay tuition.

**Hogwarts: **Assignment 7, Zoology, **Task #12 - Rottweiler:** Write about someone gentle or sweet

**Warnings: **NA

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**Stacked with: **MC4A; Shipping War; Hogwarts

**Individual Challenge(s): **Gryffindor MC (x2); Minerva's Migraine; Old Shoes; Neurodivergent; Rian-Russo Inversion; Yellow Ribbon; Yellow Ribbon Redux; In a Flash

**Word Count: **630

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_**Shipping Wars**_

**Ship (Team): **Lily Evans/James Potter

**List (Prompt): **Summer Micro 2 (Garden)

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**Firebugs **

James had the baby resting against his chest, wrapped in a sarong, as he walked outside to join Lily in the garden. She was under their holly tree, the one that was a magnet to bowtruckles. Last year, James had built a bench there for her so that she could watch the little beings wander amongst the foliage. It was where she'd told him she was pregnant. It was where they'd told _Sirius _she was pregnant. She sat there now, ankles crossed and knuckles white as she clung to her seat, head tilted up so she looked at the sky.

"Hello, love," James said softly to avoid startling her. She turned to look at him.

"Hi," she said quietly. "Is the baby hungry?"

"No," James said. "No, I just didn't want to leave him alone in the house but I wanted to… I needed to check on you."

Lily nodded, and threw her hair back so it rested over one shoulder. She chewed her lip, but moved over so that James could sit next to her. She took his hand and held it for a second before dropping it so that she could hold his arm and burrow against his shoulder.

And so that's where James sat: looking at the night sky, at all the constellations whose names he'd promptly forgotten after leaving Hogwarts, with his son resting against his chest and his wife holding onto him as if he might disappear.

James found himself listening to their breathing and paying attention to their respective rhythms more than he usually would. They had synchronised. Sometimes, he was bad at noticing big picture details or the way that time passed—but it all seemed worthwhile when he picked up on little, silly, beautiful things like that.

"Hi," he said.

"Hi," she said.

The bushes and flowers and pots and baby toys strewn about the garden were but shadows and bumps in the night. Firebugs darted across James' field of vision every now and then, flashes in the dark when he least expected them. James liked that about them. He actually thought that the world needed much more of them, but at the end of the day… well, there was a part of James that expected good in the world. It couldn't be rotten to its core if his son was breathing so softly and his wife's touch was so gentle. He wasn't sure when the next flash of light would come, but it would. It had to.

"You know…" James sighed. "I've thought about this prophecy a lot, and I've decided that I don't care about it."

Lily sat up and looked to him, frowning.

"James, I know we were never big fans of astronomy, but this is quite serious…"

"I know," James said. "And you know what, this could have been a prediction spoken by the Oracle of Delphi herself and I wouldn't mind it. Because no matter what anyone says, no matter what any dark wizard thinks might happen: we won't let anything happen to Harry."

He loved watching the frown on her face softened. She even smiled.

"We won't," Lily agreed.

"Exactly," James said. He kissed the top of the baby's head before squeezing Lily's head. "So we'll do what Dumbledore says to make sure it never comes true, but nevermind this prophecy."

"Nevermind this prophecy," Lily repeated. She ran her fingertips gently over Harry's fuzzy little head and looked up to James and smiled.

"You're so very good at doing that," Lily said.

"At doing what?" James asked.

"At making things seem not as bad. As though they're survivable," she said.

"They are," James said. "We just have to make it from one flash of light to the next."

"I'm ready to go back inside then," she said.


End file.
